Tag Archives: Blog

Episode 112: The Entrepreneurial Work Mode | Pamela Slim

Pamela Slim

Being an entrepreneur is not for everyone according to Pamela Slim. Entrepreneurs need to be competent in the entrepreneurial work mode. In Episode 112, Pamela Slim and I will discuss the entrepreneurial work mode and how to become successful as an entrepreneur.

Pamela Slim is an award-winning author, speaker and leader in the new world of work. She spent the first 10 years of her solo practice as a consultant to large corporations such as Hewlett-Packard, Charles Schwab and Cisco Systems, where she worked with thousands of employees, managers and executives. In 2005, she started the Escape from Cubicle Nation blog, which is now one of the top career and business sites on the web. She has coached thousands of budding entrepreneurs, in businesses ranging from martial art studios to software start ups.

According to Pamela, not everyone can be an entrepreneur. There are so many components that have to work together to create a great business.

A lot of people paint the picture that entrepreneurship is wonderful and fantastic, but really it’s hard work. In reality, it’s just a work mode.

Set up business licenses, a bank account, talk to an accountant and make sure you’re setting up a viable business.

Who is your market? What is the different ways you can connect with them?

Pamela Slim

Success Quotes:

Success is to enjoy my life while living it.
Hating your job intensely is not a business plan.
Define your service, choose a price, set up your payment account and boom you can test something to see if somebody’s willing to pay you for the service.
The act of planning is critical for a small business owner.
People want to feel like their life has meaning.

Shout Outs:

Kyle Duran – Pam’s lawyer
Tim Berry – Business Plan Pro
Jermaine Griggs – JermaineGriggs.com
Dr. Nick Morgan
Ramit Sethi – I Will Teach You To Be Rich

Pamela Slim

Episode 57: Blog Writing to Learn with Zeb Welborn

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I started my tutoring business back in 2009. I was very fortunate because my sister was learning how to build websites at the time and she built a website for The Tutoring Solution. 6 months of blog writing opened up my world. What many people don’t understand about social media is that it’s not just a sales and marketing tool, it’s also a learning tool and a communications tool which can make or break a business. Learn how you can use blog writing to learn.

Blog Writing to Learn by Zeb Welborn from The Tutoring Solution, Welborn Media and the Defining Success Podcast

The Tutoring Solution’s Blog

Erin Klein started her blog Kleinspiration with the intention of keeping her students and parents updated about her classroom. As she began to blog she started learning more and more about her profession because she was looking to create content for her blog. As her blog grew, she had a better understanding of the needs of her students and started to develop a reputation as a forward-thinking educator. Her blog eventually led to her being recognized by her school, then her district and has now been educating others on multiple subjects as it pertains to education. Erin was able to use her passion for blog writing and education to build a strong personal brand for herself.

Several years ago, I implemented the The Tutoring Solution’s Blog-Based Learning Program, designed to educate students by creating daily content for their own blog. While the blog-based learning program wasn’t successful, I still think the implementation of such an approach could have a great impact on those students who are passionate about a subject or a topic. The one student we had who enrolled in the program was thinking about becoming a veterinarian. Through her blog she was able to learn and discover what it took to become a veterinarian and learned some fascinating things as a result.

My recommendation to anyone looking to start a business would be to write a blog or create content (video, podcast) that will give them an opportunity to educate themselves on the topic and share what they’ve learned with others. By working to become an expert in the field and sharing new things you’re learning you can help create buzz for your business and establish and develop meaningful relationships which will help you along your career path.

The blog I started back in 2009 set the foundation for everything I have done since I started my business. My ideas have grown and I have been recognized as a thought leader in the industry. In education I began to be contacted to give presentations on motivation and helping to motivate students who were unmotivated. And I continue to learn through my blog writing through my various websites. For anyone who is looking to change careers or who is looking to do something they love writing a blog is an excellent place to start. If you’re not doing what you love, start creating content that will help you to develop an appreciation and an understanding of your field and learn along the way.

Learn more about how you can use blog writing to learn by listening to Episode 6 of the Defining Success Podcast titled, Blog Writing to Learn with Erin Klein from Kleinspiration.

Episode 52: Build a Following on Pinterest | Author Jason Miles

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Jason Miles has written six books and has been very active using social media on sites like Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube. Jason shares some insights on those social media platforms and how to set up your website to build a following on Pinterest.

Jason Miles

Jason Miles is a best selling author, VP of advancement at Northwest University, & Co-founder of Liberty Jane Clothing, in this podcast he will share his story of how him and his wife found the little niche everyone is looking for, and how they used social media to market their successful business.

Jason began a small at home business using his wife’s sewing skills creating doll clothes in 2008. In 2010 with the introduction of Pinterest his business “Skyrocketed”, and the word quickly got out. With this new demand in his product Jason Miles found another business opportunity in helping seamstresses that used his wife’s design patterns to sell their products on websites such as Pinterest, and Etsy.

Liberty Jane Clothing Logo

After starting the blog that helped his readers market and sell their products online, Jason was contacted by a author from New York that was interested in working with Jason, an expert on Pinterest, to write 3 books called Pinterest Power, Instagram Power, & Youtube Marketing Power. After his initial book contract with McGraw Hill, he launched a series of three self-publishing books 2 of which are #1 Best Sellers on the Kindle Market.

Pinterest Power & Instagram Power

“Instagram is a phenomenal tool for social media marketing, its like Twitter without words.” – Jason

Can you do direct marketing on Instagram? Will it result in traffic and sales? YES! Instagram has recently been utilized by businesses to promote a strong visual marketing campaign. By effectively combining two or three pictures into one, you can quickly grab the viewers attention and then present them with an offer. According to Jason another tactic is to use Instagram for free giveaways, this will not only grow your number of followers but also allow you to see the effectiveness of how Instagram affects your business.

Jason’s visual launch strategy includes using Instagram and Pinterest to create hype and buzz about new product launches. He releases sneak peaks of the new product he is creating, and once his followers can’t wait anymore he unleashes the products to them, creating lots of sales and revenue. A normal eBay auction has roughly a 100 visitors to the auction site, Jason’s eBay auctions have between 2500-3000 visitors to his auction, which tremendously drives up the sale price.

Some final words of advice from Jason Miles on Pinterest and Instagram

1. Pinterest – Don’t start on Pinterest, audit your own site, then utilize the PinIt tool to make sure the images that are used are effectively little ads, and have Pinterest do the rest.

2. Instagram – Have an editorial mission, take eye-catching images of your products in order to cater to your target audience, if done properly the images will work for themselves.

Jason Miles is currently a Senior Vice President of Advancement at Northwest he will be retiring in the next few months in order to focus all of his attention on his business. After having a 16 year career with a NPO charity and being a part of Northwest University for the past 4 years, Jason has finally achieved his long time dream of becoming a successful Entrepreneur. Social media has played a big part in his success by utilizing it as a strong marketing tool for his business.

As with any business its important to have a strong marketing campaign, social media will allow you to create one, just as it allowed Jason Miles to develop a small doll clothing business into a large brand. So use social media to go out there and find your success!

Engaging Discussion Questions:

How do you use Pinterest?
How do you use Instagram?
How do you use YouTube?

Links to Great Stuff:

Marketing on Pinterest – “We’ve built a thriving business based on my wife’s design talent. We’re working hard to dominate our categories, build long-term brand power and get insanely good at delivering our unique products.”
Liberty Jane Clothing – “Jason Miles is the co-founder and marketer at Liberty Jane Clothing. He has a graduate degree in Business Administration, and undergraduate degrees in both Organizational Management and Biblical Studies. By day he’s the Vice President for Advancement at Northwest University, which leaves the evenings and weekends available for all things Liberty Jane!”

Success Quotes:

“Instagram is a phenomenal tool for social media marketing, its like Twitter without words.”

Special Requests:

Interact with us on the Defining Success Podcast Facebook page

Episode 46: Real-Time Marketing | Author David Meerman Scott

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David Meerman Scott is a marketing strategist, advisor to emerging companies, best-selling author of eight books including three national best-sellers, and a professional speaker on topics including marketing, leadership, and social media. In Episode 46 of the Defining Success Podcast, David shares his ideas on real-time marketing and how you can use real-time marketing to help your business grow.

David Meerman Scott

David Meerman Scott wrote the New Rules of Marketing and PR and he’s helping businesses understand how the marketing world has shifted to giving and receiving instant feedback so you can be found online. In Episode 46 of the Defining Success Podcast, David Meerman Scott talks about Real-Time Marketing and its implication for the future.

David’s first job was at a Wall Street Street Bond Trading desk which he hated. He then began selling economic services to traders and he learned that he was really doing more marketing than he was selling. He then got a job in marketing for a company called Knight Ridder and he’s been a marketer ever since.

In 2002, David Meerman Scott worked for the News Edge Corporation was acquired by Thompson-Reuters and he was an officer and was asked to leave because they didn’t need the management team going forward and it gave him an opportunity to see what he wanted to do moving forward. At 39, he realized he could do some consulting on his own and in 2005, his second book was called Cashing in With Content and his most well-known book is the New Rules of Marketing and PR which has sold 300,000 copies.

Since 2007, David has been earning his income on the speaking market. He drifted from one point to another. David wasn’t afraid to do things that others said would be a mistake. And these events all worked out great for him. In 2002 when David decided to start his own thing and many people looked down on people who started their own businesses because it was seen as if you couldn’t find a real job.

Each of the things that paid off the most were risks that Scott took.

The old rules of marketing and PR were that you either had to buy attention for your business or yourself in the form of advertising, you had to convince media outlets to write about you or you had to reach customers individually through direct selling. The new rules of marketing and PR is the idea that on the web there are millions of people who are looking for things online to buy or do and they go to search engines or they ask their friends, colleagues and social networks. The organizations and the people that create the best content will be the ones that show up in search engines and the more likely friends are to share them.

The New Rules of Marketing & PR Fourth Edition

The New Rules of Marketing and PR is about how to create content. World Wide Rave is another book by David Meerman Scott and in the last year, David has made his book completely free, and to get it search for World Wide Rave. David wrote another book called Real-Time Marketing and PR. When people are making purchasing decisions, they are doing it right now and his book is designed to show how to engage people in real-time. Most companies and organizations are focused on campaign marketing and most companies are doing that exclusively.

The idea of marketing is switching it around from doing it when a business is ready to when the customers are ready. News Jacking is the art and science of turning your ideas into a news story. It provides really cool ideas on how you can create something that people will see because you’re piggy-backing off of a breaking news story.

David gives 35 speeches a year all over the world. This month, David is traveling to Cairo and Cutter and he’ll be gone for six days. In November, he’s traveling to Buenos Aires and Istanbul.

The biggest mistake David sees companies make is that they talk about themselves way too much. And that doesn’t work in today’s world.

It’s very important to create content on the web. To have a great website, to have real-time content around that website, whether it’s a blog or YouTube videos and it’s important to put yourself out there on the web and through social networking.

Facebook has only been open since 2007. Twitter has only been around since 2007. It’s important for businesses to understand what this means for them and their future.

David Meerman Scott

Engaging Discussion Questions:

Do you interact with your customers in Real-Time?
Are you creating content on the web? If so, how?

Links to Great Stuff:

David Meerman Scott – “David’s book The New Rules of Marketing & PR opened people’s eyes to the new realities of marketing and public relations on the Web. Six months on the BusinessWeek bestseller list and published in 26 languages from Bulgarian to Vietnamese, New Rules, now in its 4th edition, is a modern business classic. Scott’s popular blog and hundreds of speaking engagements around the world give him a singular perspective on how businesses are implementing new strategies to reach buyers.”

Success Quotes:

“Success is creating a path that allows you to enjoy life.”
“Social media is about engaging people.”
“Social media is about listening.”
“Social media is about sharing the content you create elsewhere.”
“The way that people are solving other people’s problems on the web.”
“No matter what you’re doing you’re gaining incredible knowledge, you’re learning and interacting with people.”
“Everything that I’ve done all pointed me to where I am now so I don’t have any regrets.”
“Create the content that will be valuable to the people you’re trying to reach.”
“You need to be helpful on the web that will be beneficial to people.”
“The New Rules of Marketing and PR is the idea that on the web there are millions of people who are looking for things online to buy.”
“It’s the organizations and the people that create the best content that generate the higher search engine results and promoted in social networks.”
“The New Rules of Marketing and PR is that the better your content is the more attention you drive to yourself and to your business.”
“If you’re blogging, creating videos and active on social networks than you’re more likely to get noticed than someone who isn’t.”
“I enjoy helping people and being able to interact with people and share ideas.”
“I wasn’t scared to do things that people actually told me were a mistake.”

Special Requests:

Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, of by leaving reviews on our iTunes page! Find us anywhere by searching for the Defining Success Podcast!

Episode 41: Take Action and Adjust Along the Way | Lain Ehmann from Layoutaday.com

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Lain Ehmann does a lot of work online in the scrapbooking industry where she does online events, webinars, and has been able to monetize that to make a very successful business for herself. In Episode 41 of the Defining Success Podcast Lain discusses how she’s been able to build a massive online following and been able to monetize her online efforts through event, webinars, and more. When Lain first started she had no idea on the direction her business would take her, but she’d advice anyone interested in starting a new business to take action and adjust along the way.

Lain Ehmann

Lain is a fast-talking, fast-scrapping human dynamo with three kids, tons of ideas, and more books than she could ever read in this lifetime. The author of several books on scrapbooking, including “Snippets: Mostly True Tales from the Lighter Side of Scrapbooking” and “20 Simple Secrets of Happy Scrapbookers” (co-authored with Stacy Julian), Lain loves sharing her philosophy of guilt-free, simple scrapbooking.

Lain Ehmann got involved in scrapbooking shortly after her son was born. Lain was a freelance journalist who mostly wrote on business and finance. She was invited to a Scrapbooking party where people bought and shared scrapbooking ideas and she fell in love with scrapbooking. She was also a born story-teller and scrapbooking fit in very well with her passion. She started working less and less in journalism and she began writing more and more in scrapbooking magazines. She began teaching classes and then dove headfirst into scrapbooking as her career.

The scrapbooking magazines that Lain were working for were declining and eventually both magazines she was working for folded and so, she was without a job. She started a blog as a way to keep in touch with the people she was meeting as she was meeting at scrapbooking conventions. She saw that a lot of knitters were doing webinars and she spent a year learning about Internet marketing, podcasting and hosting and in May 2010 she launched her website layoutaday.com.

The favorite thing Lain enjoys doing is live events which have really become the cornerstone of her online presence. She does live virtual events and every month she puts on a scrapinar, a free monthly education session that is centered around a video training in a state-of-the-art webroom. They use Cisco’s webex event center that Cisco uses for its international sales meetings. It’s very robust and steady and is a great platform for everything they want to do.

They do video trainings once a month where Lain gets on the camera live and either provides some kind of training or announces someone who is going to give the training. The training session is recorded, there is live chat and people arrange their schedule in order to attend the virtual event live.

In addition to her monthly session, several times a year she puts on larger events with 15 or 16 instructors in two days. Lain serves as the host, produces the event and features the instructors. It’s kind of like a Scrapapalooza.

Scrapbooking companies love the event because companies can’t be everywhere and this live event gives them access to scrapbookers all over the world. These companies are allowed to target their customers like never before during these live events that Lain holds several times a year.

In the chatroom, people will chat and you get immediate feedback that you can not get in any other way and people love it. The instructors can get the replay again and instructors can see where people were engaged and where they lost momentum.

Lain Ehmann

If you live in rural Ohio, the idea of traveling to a foreign city to attend an event is a barrier for a lot of people. Lain realized she could bring instructors to people. Scrapbookers have a lot of stuff and it becomes difficult to transport. With these online virtual events, people can enjoy, chat and scrapbook along with others. It’s really a lot of fun and they enjoy the live virtual events.

When you go to an online event there are no clicks, everyone is talking to everyone and it’s very friendly, open and supportive.

Many people find Lain online through social media. She does a lot of YouTube videos, search engine optimization, relationship marketing, affiliate marketing, and podcasting.

Lain Ehmann has multiple streams of income:

Several big events a year where attendees pay to attend.
Monthly scrapinars are free to attend, but after a month, Lain charges her customers to get access to the content.
A membership site, scraphappy.org where people pay a monthly fee to have access to the site.
Sponsorship opportunities

It seems like Lain does a lot of work, but she’s been really good at establishing repeatable systems. She’s also been fortunate enough to hire people who have been able to help her manage the workload.

Lain started with one product, the layout a day class that she offered several times a year. Originally she did it for free and didn’t see it as a big revenue generator and things began to evolve over time. Things began gradually improving from there in order to get more customers and make more revenue for her business. Everything grew from the natural progression of the business with people offering suggestions for improvement and Lain seized those opportunities and has been able to grow a successful business as a result.

Lain is most proud of bringing a group of passionate scrapbookers together who are willing to help each other learn and grow. People know that they are going to come to Lain and get a dose of positivity.

In the future, Lain hopes to take the events she’s doing and model that for companies and manufacturers to reach her audience. She has a large audience of scrapbookers who listen and follow her and there are companies that want access to that. She can create these live events for companies and bring it to her audience.

Sometimes there is a tendency to look for the cheapest way to do anything and when I started I wish I didn’t do that. The first live event I held was the cheapest and she had a problem with it. But, finding people you trust for advice and investing where they tell you to invest.

A layout is a scrapbook page with the photos on it, also known as a scrapbook page. A month-long class where she started a layout a day which she’s built on since to incorporate more of her business.

If you’re interested in hosting your own live events, Lain recommends taking a look at your audience and what you’re trying to accomplish to determine the best route to take when starting your live events/webinar. Write down what you have to have and find the solution for that. Once you find a handful of solutions, test them out to make sure it works before you do your event.

Lain Ehmann

Engaging Discussion Questions:

Have you ever attended a webinar?
What are your thoughts on scrapbooking?
Have you been procrastinating to take action? Why or why not?

Links to Great Stuff:

Layout a Day – “Take a helping of Rachael Ray, a sprinkle of Martha Stewart, and a dash of Ellen DeGeneres, shake well until blended, and what do you get? Lain Ehmann, scrapbook lover!”
Scrap Happy – “Want to Join the Happiest Group of Scrapbookers on the Interner? Well, We’d Love to Have You!”
Layout a Day: The Simple Scrapbooking Podcast – “Professional scrapbooker, author, and instructor Lain Ehmann talks the scrappy talk. Simple scrapbooking advice, fun stuff, updates, and more!”
Scrapbook Expo – The Premier Scrapbook Show
Weekly Scrapper – For the Everyday Scrapper

Success Quotes:

“Success is knowing what your passion is, working hard and helping other people through that.”
“Start by finding mentors, experts or coaches and following their advice.”
“Life is good, even if it’s not perfect.”
“A lot of it was really listening to my audience, hearing what resonated with them and doing more of that.”
“My number 1 goals was to make enough money so I didn’t have to go to work in an office.”
“These scrapinars allow the instructor or manufacturers to reach customers all over the world.”

Special Requets:

Episode 29: Relationship Marketing is Viral Marketing | Christopher Mance II from Nichevertising

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Christopher Mance II is trying to get entrepreneurs to build power connections and work together to market together and give them a chance to get their products and services to go viral. Nichevertising is attempting to use relationship marketing as a way to manufacture viral marketing by bringing businesses together to reach out to consumers.

Christopher Mance II

Christopher Mance II is the owner of Nichevertising. Nichevertising is a product designed for entrepreneurs from all walks of life looking to get their mobile apps, books, music videos, websites, products and events to go viral.

Christopher has been involved with the Internet since 1996 when he was attending the United States Military Academy at West Point. All freshman were given access to the Internet and while Chris attended the school he tried to build online websites.

The first website Chris built was devoted to hip-hop music. The website he built was a hub for news about the artists Christopher was in to, like the Wu Tang Clan and Nos. He saw himself as a curator of content and got the news from the hip hop community and people began visiting his website in more and more numbers.

Christopher tried to run many different businesses, but they were always part-time businesses. Looking back, Christopher saw himself saw himself as more of a wantrepreneur than an entrepreneur, which helped make him decide to become an entrepreneur full-time.

In 2011, Christopher came up with the idea of trying to bring people together to help them advertise their business. With the goal being that people could then bid on projects in order to make those businesses develop strong viral marketing campaigns. But, he decided to shift the direction to what it is today . . . nichevertising.

The concept being that Christopher is trying to connect businesses with the same demographics so they can collaborate together to help each other and each others campaigns go viral. Multiple businesses can join a campaign together and help each other go viral.

Christopher and his wife have been business partners since they began dating. At first, they had an online magazine that they used to sell advertising with. The only way they could have an online magazine back in 2003 was that they had to be a coder and both Christopher and his wife were coders which meant they experienced a lot of success prior to 2006. In 2006, blogging became a much more mainstream activity and they had lost their competitive advantage. Many of the blogs began to reach out to Christopher and his wife to see if they could promote their blog . . . which is how the idea for Nichevertising began.

Christopher began thinking of ways that he could automate the process of connecting and collaborating businesses and blogs. Right now they are working in a closed beta test and are slowly getting the kinks worked out, but very soon it will be an open marketplace for businesses to connect with other businesses.

In order to sign up for Nichevertising, first you have to visit their website and sign up, then self select yourself into a niche, create your marketing campaign and then connect with a who’s who of entrepreneurs who are looking for partners as well. Looking at their database and campaigns to determine who is a good match for you and it’s up to the business if they want to accept the partnership you’re offering.

One campaign is composed of five different businesses coming together and it’s about creating a scale of partnerships. Going viral is not the same for you as it is for say, Time Warner. For a young entrepreneur, viral marketing is not the same as it would be for those large organizations. Your goal as an entrepreneur is not to get a million views, but it should be your goal to bring people into your world so they will refer you.

The biggest mistake Christopher says he’s made is thinking that he could be a successful entrepreneur while he was working for somebody else. He thought he would be able to start online businesses and make enough of an income to replace his income from his full-time job. Christopher wishes he would have started right away building his lifestyle around being an entrepreneur.

The people who created the Harlem Shake video were people who were very passionate about dancing and the reason for its ultimate success was that they were passionate about the project. The original Harlem Shake people were constantly making videos and eventually their Harlem Shake video went big, but it’s because they had a built in audience from their other videos. When you get to the point where you are good at what you’re passionate about then and only then will you have developed a great viral marketing opportunity.

Hubspot is a great example of a company that went viral. They created the concept of inbound marketing and an entire industry has now sprouted up around the idea of inbound marketing. Hubspot managed to go viral though by creating great content day in and day out. All entrepreneurs should think of how they can go viral like Hubspot went viral. There are loads of companies that offer inbound marketing advice now though, you can learn more here if this is something that interests you.

Christopher Mance II

Engaging Discussion Questions:

What do you think it takes to make something go viral?
What do you think about relationship marketing?
What do you think about viral marketing?

Links to Great Stuff:

Niche.fm – We fast-track the process of “going viral” by: providing a secure web-based software application for entrepreneurs like you to join a cooperative advertising network; providing a way for you to double, triple and even 10x the reach of your campaigns; and vastly increasing the likelihood that your campaigns goes viral!!!
HubSpot – “HubSpot all-in-one marketing software helps more than 8,000 companies in 56 countries attract leads and convert them into customers. A pioneer in inbound marketing, HubSpot aims to help its customers make marketing that people actually love
Sunny Coast Skate – Creators of the Harlem Shake.”
West Point – “The United States Military Academy has been educating, training, and inspiring leaders of character for our United States Army and for the nation for more than
200 years. West Point provides a 47-month leader-development program steeped in
academic rigor, military discipline, and physical challenges, all built upon a
moral-ethical foundation. The academy is an internationally recognized
institution for academic, military and physical excellence, and we are proud
that today’s cadets will become tomorrow’s military, public and private-sector
leaders.”

Success Quotes:

“Success is not defined by credentials. It’s really defined by your mental health, physical health and the relationship you have with your family.”
“Focus on your authenticity and not try to fake it.”
“If you are not passionate about cats then do not try to create a viral cat video.”
“If you create great content or have great customer service and you get great referrals you’ll continually go viral.”
“Nichevertising is a simple idea of a business finding a partner, getting a partnership connected and getting a campaign out in the world.”

Special Requests:

Like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @DSuccessPodcast.

New Book Update: Teen Mom Confidential | Ashley Majeski

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Teen Mom Confidential

In our 5th episode of the Defining Success Podcast, titled Having a Business Mind, Ashley shared that she was working on a big project, but she couldn’t unveil the details. The exciting project she was working on was a new book titled, Teen Mom Confidential.

Ashley Majeski, the founder and editor of TheAshleysRealityRoundup.com, teamed up with Sean Daly, an L.A.-based journalist who has conducted over 2,000 celebrity interviews and contributed stories to People, Us Weekly and In Touch, to put this project together.

The book has been given a lot of great recommendations from Starcasm.com, TheStir.com, TeenMomNews.com and LAFamily.com which you can find on the Teen Mom Confidential website.

Learn about Amber Portwood, Jenelle Evans, Kailyn Lowry, Maci Bookout, Farrah Abraham, Catelynn Lowell, Chelsea Houska, Leah Messer and the rest of MTV’s famous young teen moms.

Teen Mom has been in the news a lot recently, especially Teen Mom Farrah Abraham for a recent pornographic film she shot. With the publicity surrounding the Teen Mom series on MTV, Ashley’s new book was released at just the right time.

Ashley has learned to take her passion for Reality TV and turn it into an income stream for herself. If you’ve ever thought of writing and making money from an online blog Episode 5 of the Defining Success Podcast is a must.

You can listen to Ashley’s episode on how to have a business mind when starting your blog or you can by her book, which is on sale now for just $12.99 – Teen Mom Confidential: Secrets & Scandals from MTV’s Most Controversial Shows.

If you’re a fan of Teen Mom or 16 and Pregnant, buy Ashley’s book . . . It’s a great read and I know you’ll like it.

Episode #6: Blog Writing to Learn | Erin Klein from Kleinspiration

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Erin Klein discusses how she uses blog writing to make her a better educator, to continue her learning, to share her learning with others and to communicate with other leading educators and education professionals. Pay attention to how Erin has used her blog to make positive change in her community and her classroom.

Thank you for visiting the Defining Success Podcast. Please download, subscribe and rate our podcast on iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-success-podcast/id619459909 Thanks for listening!

Erin Klein from Kleinspiration

Recap:

Erin Klein has been a classroom teacher and has developed her own blog which has been successful in its own right.

Erin has taught 1st grade, junior high school and now 2nd grade and she loves it. She used a website for her classroom highlighting her students work and her website became so successful in her school that she got recognition by her district. And then was asked to give presentations to other teachers and she began to blog as a resource sharing site to share her students work and share resources with other teachers.

As a teacher, Erin feels that the blog helps her become a better teacher and gives her an opportunity to share, get feedback, and offers an opportunity for self reflection. She knows that maintaining her blog has helped her become a better teacher and by sharing she has helped other teachers become better.

A recent activity Erin Klein did in her classroom that she shared with others is “If Our Characters Had Instagram,” where students are encouraged to act as if they were a character and then encouraged to think of what types of pictures they would take and share on Instagram which has taken off and teachers all over the world have been downloading her If Our Characters Had Instagram lesson plan.

Erin uses Twitter and Facebook to connect with educators. She loves using Twitter more so than Facebook because, to her, Twitter is more of a professional outlet. She loves the ability Twitter gives her to connect with different types of educators all over the globe.

Blog writing is important for Erin because she uses it to share resources and reflect on what she’s doing in the classroom and it also gives her a way to connect with the parents as to what’s going on in the classroom.

One thing Erin didn’t expect when she began blogging is the amount of businesses that would contact her asking her to use their product in her classroom. Some products she’s recently used in her classroom is the Sifteo Cubes and the Sky Livescribe Interactive Pen, which she says her students love.

Erin would like to see a lot more student choice in the classroom, more teacher-driven content, more creativity, more student voice, more projects, more top-level blooms taxonomy, more mobile and technology apps (used less by particular district approved apps). Ideally, she would like to put the curriculum in the students hands and having them create it and teach each other. Putting teachers in a more facilitative role and putting the learning into students’ hands.

Learning is a priority to Erin as she’s always looking for opporunities to learn and grow. She encourages teachers to ask administrators for things and don’t take no as a final answer. If she feels something is in the best interest of her students then she wants to ask why and that new teachers are so often told no and that that kills the creative process. Erin does recommend being professional, but still challenging administrators to accomplish goals that she feels would be in the best interest of her students.

Erin equates success and happiness to each other. Monetary value doesn’t mean success. Many people she knows who some people would deem successful are often very unhappy. She thinks if people are happy doing something they love, regardless of money than they are successful.

Engaging Discussion Question(s):

Where do you see the future of education going?
Where would you like to see education going in the years to come?

Links to Great Stuff:

Kleinspiration – “Erin Klein the technology chairperson for the Michigan Reading Association, a national A Plus Workshop Presenter, SMART Technologies Exemplary Educator, Really Good Stuff Monthly Blogger, Edutopia Guest Blogger, Edudemic Guest Blogger and Magazine Contributor, National Writing Project member, and award-winning EduTech Blogger.Klein has most recently appeared in the Scholastic Instructor Magazine and co-authored Amazing Grades with experts from 13 countries around the world.”
If Our Characters Had Instagram – A lesson plan designed by Erin Klein which can be used in classrooms from Kindergarten to High School – If a character/historical figure had Instagram, what kinds of pictures would they take?
Sifteo Cubes – “Sifteo Cubes are a magical new interactive game system built on the timeless play patterns of legos, building blocks, and domino tiles.”
Sky Livescribe Interactive Pen – “Record everything you hear, say, write and draw. Wirelessly sync notes and audio to your personal Evernote^® account where you can replay, organize, search and share your interactive notes any time and anywhere.”
The Tutoring Solution’s Share Your Passion Scholarship – The Share Your Passion Essay Contest is open to all High School students. For students to be eligible for one of their scholarships they had to write an essay from the prompt: “What are you passionate about? Why are you passionate about it? How do you plan on using your passion to help others?”
Welborn Media
#EdChat – Join the Discussion on Twitter.

Success Quotes:

“Put the curriculum in the students hands and having them create it and teach each other.” – Erin Klein

Special Requets:

Share The Tutoring Solution’s Share Your Passion Scholarship with any passionate individual in grades K-12 who is willing to share what they are passionate about with others.
Download, review and subscribe to the Defining Success Podcast on iTunes.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter – @DSuccessPodcast.
Sign up for the Defining Success Podcast Newsletter.

Episode #5 – Having a Business Mind | Ashley Majeski from The Ashley’s Reality Roundup

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Reality TV blogger Ashley Majeski tells us about how she got started in blogging and the opportunities it’s created. “It was random”, she says after watching an episode of ‘The Bachelor’ and her friends telling her she should write down all the quips she makes during the show. So she did. After googling her way through the startup process, Ashley began to figure out how to blog and how to have a business mind while doing it.

Ashley Majeski from The Ashley’s Reality Roundup

Since she started writing at age 13, through to college where she covered sports and school activities, it seems Ashley has always had a pen to paper, only now it’s a keyboard but her drive has never dulled. She got an internship with the magazine Us Weekly and it was there she fine-tuned her writing toward celebrity journalism. Modeling her site after celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, Ashley narrowed her focus down even further to reality television.

So, you have your blog…now what? How do you get readers? Ashley says that while trying to figure out this very question, she discovered a niche of readers with the show ‘Teen Mom’. Every time she would write about this show, her hits would dramatically increase. Eventually, even some of the stars from the shows she was covering would read and generate even more traffic. Ashley quickly became the subject matter expert in reality TV, answering questions and fielding calls from major news outlets looking to her and her sight for information on the shows.

For Ashley, her blog has opened many doors, a far cry from the days of “googling her way through it”. She cautions however that this business is “ridiculously hard to get into” and once you’re in, you walk a very fine line between writing about people to poking fun at them. She says she never intends to be negative, rather she’s had the most success with keeping things positive.

Now people are reading your blog, can you make any money with it? Ashley admits she was spending all of her time working on the blog and decided to try her hand at making some money with it. She began to put ads on her blog and with a few key interviews with major news organizations, her readership skyrocketed and she started to see some positive cash flow. Ashley had developed a strong business mind when it came to managing her blog.

Ashley recommends using a self-hosted blog, meaning make sure you set up your own website with your own domain name because eventually you will be able to post your own ads on your blog page.

One of her favorite article’s was when she was working with the New York Post for a character on Teen Mom and it was picked up by outlets all over the country and it started the storm and because of the story it forced MTV to comment on the future of the show. Ashley thought it was interesting to show how one story can have such a strong impact on our world.

She enjoys having reality TV stars contact her to post articles on their lives and how these people feel connected to these reality stars. And she’s able to help people to connect with others who they’ve found value in. Ashley says in order to run a good blog, you have to be very consistent because people lose interest fast and so many other people are doing blog-writing now-a-days. “Always be prepared to work.” Always be willing to ask for help and always give help when you’re asked.

When becoming a blog writer, it’s important to make a distinction for you blog. Whether your blog is a for-fun blog or a for-profit blog because the strategy is entirely different. A for-fun blog is a blog where you’re writing just for your own pleasure and a for-profit blog is a blog where your build readership and create things to sell. Sometimes people post ads and in some cases they are trying to sell a product.

One of the biggest mistakes Ashley has made is being to brutal to some of the reality TV stars she’s written blogs about and she’s learned from her mistakes by being more light-hearted in her writing and does not resort to attacking a person’s character. Her recent goals are to expand her writing to include more reality television. All of these people say they are looking for love, but really they are looking for fame. Ashley says the best reality TV show to watch now is the Bachelor.

Ashley believes that success is doing something you love to do every single day and that other people care about it. She thought that if she could have picked any career this is what she would want to be able to do. Success means you’re happy and Ashley is definitely happy.

To follow up with Ashley, go to www.theashleysrealityroundup.com or www.twitter.com/theashleysrr

Engaging Discussion Questions:

If you could write a blog on any topic, what topic would you choose?

Links to Great Stuff:

The Ashley’s Reality Roundup – I apologize for the mistake in the podcast where I said the name of the website wrong, but for those of you interested in following up with Ashley Majeski or learning more about reality TV shows like the Bachelor and Teen Mom, please visit www.theashleysrealityroundup.com
Welborn Media –

Success Quotes:

“Always be prepared to work.” – Ashley Majeski

Special Requests:

Download, review and subscribe to the Defining Success Podcast on iTunes.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter – @DSuccessPodcast.
Sign up for the Defining Success Podcast Newsletter.
Follow me on Twitter – @ZebWelborn